Flourishes of dynamic movement, of fabric that bursts out of the frame like a blossoming bud, and a peak of flesh teasing from underneath… Vivianne Sassen’s fashion portraits offer a lavish antidote to over-exposed minimalism. Hey there colour, welcome back.

Currently on show at The Photographer’s Gallery as part of their fashion season, Sassen’s Analemma series makes the body a vehicle for movement, albeit captured in a static photograph. With her crackling eye for shape and form, Sassen creates little fashion aliens out of her subjects. These beautiful freaks, with their saturated skin-tones wrapped in voluminous swathes of fabric, can be found striking a pose against a surrealist landscape or moulding their bodies into sculptural installations. Their composition owes much more to art history than to contrived fashion formulae.

Mirroring the performance element of her shoots, the 350 or so images on view are presented in a sweeping swirl of movement; projections slide across the walls and floors in a constant loop of motion. And the colour literally blooms from her photographs. Sometimes it’s sharp and graphic, cutting a bold, clashing contrast of dramatic shapes and hues. Other times it’s present as a beautifully tonal and subtle spectrum. It’s Sassen’s non-conformity, her ability to eek-out every single droplet of pigment and her contextual references to fine art, that mean her work can not be confined to, or defined by, the fashion industry.

It’s funny that colour seems to have taken on an avant-garde status in fashion, but here’s to the industry’s current renegade and her eye-popping palette of human sculptures.

Vivianne Sassen Analemma: Fashion Photography 1992 –2012 is at The Photographer’s Gallery until 18 January 2015.

thephotographersgallery.org.uk

Tags: fashion photography, The Photographers Gallery, Vivianne Sassen Analemma

Today The Photographers’ Gallery opens its doors to three seperate exhibitions that look at the work of three very different artists, all influencial in their own ways. The first exhibition, Taking Shots, coincides with the centenary of William Burroughs’ birth and features over 100 works by the beatnik writer, most of which are never seen before. Featuring vintage photographs, collages and assemblages alongside postcards, magazine and book covers in the first worldwide exhibition to focus on his photographic collections. The name of the show itself, Taking Shots, refers, obviously to photography, but also to Burroughs’ well-known heroin addiction and his obsession with firearms. The second show, running alongside Taking Shots, is the European debut of David Lynch’s The Factory Photographs. The series explores derelict factories from Germany, Poland, New York and England, depicted in his usual cinematic style to capture a bygone industrial era. “I just like going into strange worlds,” said David Lynch. “A lot more happens when you open yourself up to the work and let yourself act and react to it. Every work ‘talks’ to you, and if you listen to it, it will take you places you never dreamed of.”

The third exhibition, Photographs 1976 – 1987, focuses on the last decade of Andy Warhol’s life, featuring over fifty vintage black and white prints alongside a small number of Warhol’s Stitched Works. The show will give a glipse into the daily life of the well-known pop artist as people in the streets, parties, uninhabited interiors, cityscapes, signage, still life, consumer products and miscellaneous objects that surrounded him all come to life in the gallery.

The three exhibitions run from the 17th January – 30th March.

thephotographersgallery.org.uk

Tags: Andy Warhol, David Lynch, The Photographers Gallery, William Burroughs

When featured in a commercial or documentative format, photography more often than not can be understood by many, however conceptual art photography and its intended purpose and message remains slightly more mysterious to some. Last week, Twin visited the Photographers’ Gallery, London, for the launch of Why Art Photography? – the latest book written by female photographer, critic and art historian, Lucy Soutter, that provides a deeper understanding and explanation to photography as an art form.

Throughout its six chapters, Soutter’s book explores themes such as ambiguity, objectivity and authenticity, whilst introducing the reader to various fresh perspectives and responses to existing debates, cogently defending the form of conceptual art as a valid use for photography. We were privileged enough to hear Lucy talk through the final chapter entitled ‘Beyond Photography’, which provides an excellent summary to the book’s key focal point. Here she examines the work of a number of contemporary conceptual artists, all of whom have merged photography with various other 2D, 3D and even abstract art forms, demonstrating that the photographic medium should never in any way be only limited to the ‘wall’.

Why Art Photography? published by Routledge, is available to purchase now.

Tags: Art, Lucy Soutter, photography, The Photographers Gallery